


in her tomb by the sea

by kadaransmuggler



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-11
Updated: 2017-01-11
Packaged: 2018-09-16 21:56:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9291260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kadaransmuggler/pseuds/kadaransmuggler
Summary: ""He had already asked for his forgiveness, Commander. His prayer was for you."She feels like she is drowning in the ocean she had tried to hold back before."





	

The first time Commander Shepard dies, it is a thing of panicked and gasping breaths, her fingers clawing at the back of her armor like the suffocating black of space clawed at her lungs. The last thing she remembers was the light shining above Alchera, dancing through the atmosphere. 

 

She closes her eyes, and tries to think of something nice. 

 

She wakes up two years later. 

* * *

Celesta is only a shadow of herself once she wakes up. Her body is taller, heavier, stronger, and her biotics are not hers anymore either. Sometimes she wonders if she is still the same, but could anyone come back from death unchanged? 

 

Instead of looking for answers, she runs. She runs and she fights and she builds a team to save the galaxy, and when she can do nothing but wait until they reach their next destination, she hides in her cabin and searches for something to do, desperate to avoid thinking about any of it. 

 

She runs, through Horizon and thought it all, until she finds herself on Illium, the setting sun illuminating the world. “Prayers for the wicked must not be forsaken,” he tells her, and Celesta thinks she might have a lot of praying to do. 

* * *

When she thinks about Thane, about how they fit together, she thinks of tea. It had been something of theirs, before the end. Late nights or early mornings in the mess hall, when a quiet hush hung over the ship, Celesta and Thane would find themselves drinking mugs of tea. The warmth made her feel less awful about the world, and he found that it eased the ache in his lungs just a little. It is the conversations that Celesta likes the most. It is always easier to talk when the ship is sleeping and the only other sound in the silence is the soft humming of the engines. She learns Thane, learns his story and his secrets and his thoughts, and she learns herself, too.

 

In the end, she cannot think of Thane without tasting peppermint. 

* * *

“Does it hurt?” she asks one day, her fingers splayed over the warmth of the mug in her hand. It is late, or maybe it is early, but the rest of the ship sleeps and Celesta finds it hard to remember that there is anyone else in the world but them. 

 

“Not much. Not yet. Sometimes it is hard to breathe, but the disease hasn’t progressed very far,” he answers. There is an unspoken yet hanging in the air between them. She puts her mug down on the table, her movements careful.

 

She reaches out and interlocks her fingers with his. His skin is warm and rough, pressed against her palm. He watches her intently, his eyes looking at her face before his gaze turns to their linked fingers. 

 

“I’m glad I met you when I did,” she says, like it is a sacred confession. His hand squeezes hers briefly, once, and then again. The ship hums around them.

* * *

They do not kiss until right before the final fight. She has never seen him so unsettled, but she knows the feeling well. She touches a palm to his cheek, turns his face towards her. 

 

“Be alive with me tonight,” she murmurs, and then their lips are pressed together, her fingers clutching desperately at the fabric of his coat. She pulls him as close as she can and she thinks she has found a good reason for coming back from the dead. 

* * *

She doesn’t lose anyone. She doesn’t understand how, doesn’t _want_ to understand how, she only knows that they all made it. Her crew throws a party. She and Thane stay in her cabin. 

* * *

“What was it like?” he asks once, in between the suicide mission and in between returning to the Alliance. 

 

“What was what like?” she asks, laying on her back, one arm over her stomach and the other behind her head as she watches the stars pass overhead. 

 

“Death. Dying,” he ask, his eyes flicking upwards once before returning to her. She can see the fear lurking the depths of his gaze, and she lets out a shuddering breath. 

 

“All I remember is the dying. If there was anything after, I don’t remember,” she replies. 

 

“Perhaps it is because you were brought back,” he says, and she thinks that he is trying to reassure himself, almost desperately. 

 

She knows what it’s like to have a crisis of faith when there isn’t much time left. 

 

“Perhaps. Probably,” she answers, and when he lays down beside her, she silently curls into his side, his heartbeat reverberating in her ears. 

* * *

The Reapers have come to Earth, and the air is heavy with death. Celesta knows that she will not escape this. She isn’t sure what this is, if it is the dying or the Reapers or the endless fights, but she knows that it will never end until she does. She follows Anderson, her pistol hot in her hand, and she does what she can to help those who are left. 

 

When she leaves, she leaves everything behind, even Anderson. The thinks of the boy who climbed into the shuttle as she tells Joker to take them to Mars, and she wonders if any of it is worth it. There is no answer.

 

She does what she has always done. She starts to gather her team, starts to save the world. It isn’t until she gets a message that reminds her of the taste of peppermint that she thinks she has a reason. 

* * *

“You know, you could join me on the Normandy,” she says, her hands in his, their knees touching as they look out of the hospital’s window. She wants him anywhere but here, in this too-bright, too-sterile place. 

 

“You need the best, Celesta. I am not at mine,” he says gently, but his grip on her hand tightens, and Celesta feels like she is grasping at water, trying to hold back the force of the ocean. 

 

“You wouldn’t need to work. It would just be to get you out of here,” she says, swallowing back the thickness in her throat. Thane gives her a small, sad smile, and presses a kiss to the back of her hand. The warmth lingers. 

 

“Time for us is short, siha. We have always known,” he reminds her, and she wants to scream with the injustice of it all. She wants to tell him that a hospital isn’t a place he belongs, even as his lungs work against him. It is too bright, too clean, _too much._  

 

“I suppose we have,” she says, instead. She lets herself curl against his chest for the few minutes they have left together. 

* * *

The Citadel burns around them. Cerberus corpses litter the ground as Celesta watches, frozen, unable to move as Thane fights the other assassin. It is only when the blade pushes through his chest, the blade gleaming red, that she moves again. Her pistol is firing at the fleeing assassin before she is even aware that she is moving, running to Thane’s side. The drell keeps moving, chases the assassin around a corner where he leans against the wall, one hand pressed against the hole in his chest as the blood spills out. Celesta stops, presses her hand over his. “Thane,” she finally chokes out, and his name sounds almost like a prayer. 

 

“Go, siha. I have time. The Council doesn’t,” he tells her, pushing her gently. She lets out a sound somewhere between a whimper and a sob and presses a kiss against his lips. 

 

“I’m sorry,” she tells him, and then Liara and Garrus have caught up and she is running again, ducking into a sky car and giving chase. 

* * *

The hospital was an unfitting place for Thane to die. In the end, his hand is in hers, his breath wheezing in his lungs. “Kalahira,” he begins, his voice rasping. She chokes back a sob, and another when Koylat has to take over the reading. There is a faint smile on Thane’s face as his hand grips hers, squeezing as tightly as he can manage. 

 

“Would you like to finish the prayer with me, Shepard?” Koylat asks, and Celesta swallows the lump in her throat long enough to read the words on the page. 

 

He is dead before she finishes. 

 

She thinks that she is, too. 

 

“Why did the last verse say 'she,' Koylat?” Celesta asks, and she doesn’t bother to stop the tears any longer. She doesn’t let go of his hand, either. 

 

“He had already asked forgiveness for his sins, Commander. His prayer was for you.” 

 

She feels for a moment like she is drowning in the ocean she tried to hold back before. 

* * *

She is cleaning out what is left of his things in life support when she finds a prayer book. It is well-used, well-loved, and the last remnant that she has of him. She cradles it carefully in her arms as she sits down to look through it. 

 

It is written in a language she doesn’t understand. She supposes it is a drell language, and her implants can only translate a few words here and there. On one page, scribbled in the margin, she recognizes her name. It is spelled incorrectly, in his neat handwriting. She thinks that what follows it is a definition- the only words her implants can translate are “protector” and “guide.” 

 

_ Your memory is not like mine, but perhaps you could hold me in it for awhile.  _

 

_ I will await you across the sea. _

 

She shuts the book, holds it to her chest, and cries. 

* * *

The second time Celesta Shepard dies, it is a thing of burning light and freedom. It is every atom being swallowed whole, and she thinks that that is what dying should feel like. The green of the light reminds her of the green of someone else, and the last thing Celesta remembers is the faint taste of peppermint. 

* * *

 

_Her head breaks the surface of the sea, her lungs heaving as she takes a deep breath of air. There is a figure standing on the shore, and she knows that he is waiting for her. She swims until she can run, and then they are crashing into each other in a tangle of arms and legs and laughter. “Siha,” he says, and her answering grin is brilliant in it’s intensity._


End file.
